Definition: Brisance
by Dream Writer 4 Life
Summary: Aftermath of the Mole Eradication. Lauren's gone; now what? Fifth in the Definition Series. A Dream Writer Experience.


**Others in series:**

1. Definition: Harangue  
2. Definition: Blitzkrieg  
3. Definition: Prolepsis  
4. Definition: Prolusion

Title: Definition: Brisance  
**Series:** Definition  
**Author:** Dream Writer 4 Life  
**Rating:** PG-13 for themes and language  
**Genre:** Hopeful angst  
**Archived:** SD-1, , and Cover Me. Anywhere else, just ask and you shall receive!  
**'Shippers' Paradise:** purely S/V  
**Spoilers/Timeline:** AU; major spoilers through 3.17 "The Frame". My version of the Mole Finding and Eradication  
**Summary:** Fallout from the Mole Eradication. Lauren's gone; now what? Fifth in the Definition Series. A Dream Writer Experience.  
**Disclaimer:** If I owned "Alias", I wouldn't have to stress about scholarships. In other words, I own nothing. Period. End of story. Wait, no it's not! Keep reading!  
**Suggested Soundtrack:** "Angel Standing By" by Jewel, "Broken" by Seether feat. Amy Lee, "Fragile (Free)" by Maria Mena  
**Author's Note:** Life seems determined for me to not write anything for a while. I've got registration next week combined with Forensics "camp" and work, and I'm sure my parents will pull another college visit on me. Anyway, hope you enjoy this. I fixed it!

  
  
Definition: Brisance **  
  
Bri·sance**, noun: the shattering or crushing effect of a sudden release of energy as in an explosion; aftermath Her fingers are the first to move, are the first signs that life still resides in her pale form. 

Senses then begin returning at random, pain being the first and most overwhelming. _Everything_ hurts down to the tip of her hair and her pinky toes. Her chest feels as if a very large sumo wrestler sits upon it, constricting her breathing to shallow gasps through her nose. So that's what those tubes up her nose are for: oxygen. When she's fully awake she'll get rid of those, but for the time being, she'll revel in the itchy gown scratching inappropriate places and the fact that _she's alive._ She heard that shot, felt the pain sear through her back and into her chest, and thought that was it, that she finally got him back only to lose him literally a split second later. But the pain in her chest and innumerable IVs — her brain is still too foggy for an actual count — prove otherwise.

She only wishes she could remember seeing a white light during her near-death experience so as to contradict Weiss's patented Darkness Theory. Death can't be all that bad.

But, of course, now she has something to live for.

She does not open her eyes — her eyelids are too heavy at the moment; maybe they've got sumo wrestlers of their own — but she can still hear the feverish chirping of both crickets and cicadas, each trying to drown out the other. Passively, she wonders where the sounds of traffic went, or if her ears are finally working right and are filtering out unwanted sounds. But then she hears the loud, long blat of a truck driver leaning on his horn and she smiles internally.

Her mouth tastes chalky and fuzzy at the same time, dry tongue practically sticking to the roof of her equally dry rough palate. Idly, she wonders who slacked off on the job of feeding her ice chips.

That seemingly innocuous pondering sends her brain into a tailspin.

What happened after she passed out?

Is Vaughn okay?

How serious are her injuries?

Is Vaughn in a bed next to her?

How many people have been to see her?

Who has been to see her?

Is anyone there now?

How long has she been unconscious? No matter what, she decides, waking up this time cannot _possibly_ be worse than the last. Vaughn was there and alive when she conked out, unlike last time; there is no way in hell that he would let someone take her away without following immediately behind, without being by her side every moment just waiting for her to wake up.

Unless...

No. She cannot think like that. Not when her brain is still hazy like this. Not when she cannot trust herself to weed out fact from fiction.

Because despite the oxygen tubes up her nose, she thinks she can smell cologne — _his_ cologne in specific. In spite of the pain, she can feel herself string a small smile across her lips.

Then the darkness begins to dilute, shifting more towards grey, then eggshell, then off-white, then pure white blinding goodness.

Oh, those sumo guys must be leaving, 'cause she's opening her eyes...

* * *

The first thing you see is the practically paralyzing fluorescent light above your bed that makes you regret opening your eyes at all. 

The second is Vaughn.

He stands at the window off to your left, the soft moonlight glittering on his folded arms across his chest. Sighing, he leans against the corner of the alcove and lets his eyes drift closed before snapping them open again. He repeats the process twice before mumbling something to himself and stabbing angrily at his eyes, trying to rub away the bags hanging beneath them. You notice his wrinkled clothing and the rumpled cot at his feet and the way the bottom half of his face is darker than the top and put two and two together: he hasn't been home (or shaved) in a while. His left hand is pleasantly void of any jewelry but still has a small tan line around his ring finger which nearly makes you shout for joy; it can't have been more than a couple days since the mission to Mexico.

A late spring breeze flutters through the window propped open next to him, bringing with it hints of rain, cut grass, and his cologne. It's warm and soft — just like his touch, like his mere presence — and gratefully masks for a moment the gut-wrenching smell of antiseptic and plastic and odourless detergents. The crickets and cicadas rise for a moment but decrescendo as the breeze recedes, allowing the steady beep of you heart monitor, the hum of those damn fluorescent lights, and the occasional angry driver to clarify harshly.

All those sounds converge on your brain and pound like John Henry's fabled hammer, and you close your eyes to the pain, hoping you'll slip back into unconsciousness safe with the knowledge that he's alive and well and unmarried. But unfortunately you don't, and you force your eyelids to separate, cleverly avoiding the lights. Despite the unbelievable pain, you turn your head towards him and lift one corner of your mouth in a weak imitation of a smile, patiently waiting while the world stops pulsating like a techno club after two AM.

"You know, it's illegal to open a hospital window. Completely unsanitary." He propels himself off the wall and his arms drop to his side in shock. Ignoring your bemoaning muscles, you widen your grin and offer a small wave. "Hey."

He rushes to your side without unlocking your gazes, nearly tripping over the cot in his haste. Laying the back of his hand against you forehead, he cringes only slightly and moves to open the window even wider.

"I was serious about the window thing. Believe me. Francie got slapped with a five hundred-dollar fine when she opened hers after she got her tonsils removed."

"I don't care," He answered testily, pressing his hand against the screen to gauge the temperature of the air outside. "You have a raging fever and the nurses won't change the temperature in the room. All they did was give me wet cloths and told me you had to sweat it out. Bullshit. Complete bullshit."

You let him have his moment with his misplaced anger then silently beckon him back to your side. "Thank you, Vaughn," You murmur as he pulls up a worn wooden chair next to your bed. He grips your hand tightly and runs his thumb over your knuckles soothingly. "But I'm not paying that fine." He doesn't even reward your weak attempt at humour with a smile. Instead he stares down at your connection, a bit distracted, and his thumb quietly continues its quest, discretely avoiding the morphine IV taped to the top of your hand and the pulse monitor clamped on your index finger. Suddenly your nose begins to itch and the oxygen pouring through it overwhelms you, and you begin trying to extract yourself from the tubes.

Instead of jumping down your throat like he would have in the past, he merely shakes his head and looks up at you from under his eyebrows. "Don't. You need that."

"But they itch my—"

"Sydney."

"Well, can you at least turn out the light?" You concede tiredly, reclaiming your hand to lay it gingerly across your stomach. "The buzz is killing my head." He complies without complaint and sits back down silently. The light from the bathroom illuminates the room just as well; thank God you can't hear it. The tension in the room is as malleable as a box of Playdough, and it picks up where the fluorescent lights left off: compressing and compacting your brain to the point of implosion. Ignoring the pain for the time being, you ask in a voice surprisingly strained, "What happened?"

He does not answer right away, nor does he meet your gaze when he does respond. "Lauren shot you in the left shoulder through your back. The bullet slowed after it broke through your shoulder blade and stopped before it hit your heart. You were in surgery for about seven hours; they had to reconstruct your shoulder, fix internal bleeding, and a lot of other stuff I didn't really follow. All that matters is that you're going to be okay now." His voice falls off abruptly, as if he stepped behind a metal door. You know this little bit of exposition served two purposes: it answered your question while twisting the knife he plunged into his own back. Also, he spoke matter-of-factly so as to verbally distance himself from the situation, while at the same time internally beat himself up. You know him too well for him to successfully pull this shit on you.

In retribution, you ask the one question that will illuminate all the cracks in his armor. "Where's Lauren now? Is she in custody?"

Vaughn straightens up in his chair and lets his folded hands fall into his lap. "I shot her. She's dead. She's dead." Yes, there is relief in his voice — it's painfully evident — but there is also a note of something you know inside and out, know almost as well as you know him: guilt.

You sigh, but the intonation suggests it has nothing to do with what he said; rather, what he did _not_ say. Always the silent sufferer, the self-appointed martyr, even if he didn't realize what he was doing. He did it when you were handler/agent, when you were boyfriend/girlfriend, and now he's doing it when you're...whatever the hell you are now. (You don't even want to think about the twisted phrases you could use to describe this situation.) He was always willing to dole compliments, but was _never_ forthcoming with problems, probably a remnant from when his father died and he had to absorb his mother's sorrow wordlessly. You smile at your psycho-analyzing — completely out of place considering the tone, mood, and setting.

But the grin shatters quickly as your shoulder muscles begin to spasm with inactivity. Pain rockets through your being like a flash of lightning as your heart monitor and blood pressure spike. Your entire body convulses in an attempt to absorb your arm's movements, but that only serves to fuel the indescribable pain and suddenly the world's spinning and rocking and blurring and lurching and _oh God the pain..._

It stops just as abruptly as it began, and your arm merely twitches in the aftermath. Your breathing hitches laboriously on each intake, hampered even further at your attempts to stifle the laments struggling to pour out of your throat. Despite the near-paralyzing pain, you turn your face away to hide your tears. Yes, it hurts physically, but what aches even more is your heart, for you know that little episode did nothing to ease his guilt. If anything, you only deepened it. Yes...Even as your guilt wets the pillow beneath your head, you can hear his breath catch with his own, and you sense him stabbing again at his eyes. He inhales a few times, the air rattling around in his chest like the last bolt in a metal toolbox, before he tries his voice again, and even then it shakes like the legs of a newborn deer. "Syd—" His voice cracks, but he continues anyway "—is there anything I can do?"

"Morphine..." You whisper while barely moving your lips, your chalky mouth almost getting the best of you. "Morphine would be nice." Out of the corner of your eye you notice him reach up and hold down a button on one of the many machines hooked up to your body. Almost instantly you feel a rush of liquid siphon into your veins from the IV on your hand, and the pain blurs around the edges, still present but vastly more bearable.

You sigh happily.

Silence sits in the room like a third person, and He stays so long you think Vaughn must have fallen asleep. But you need Him there because you need to think, think about how to convince him of his innocence. The more you ponder the more your conviction strengthens: the only way he'll believe you is if you tell him the absolute, no-holds-barred truth. Even then, there is no guarantee, but you know you must take the chance.

"It's not your fault," You whisper, still thinking him asleep.

"What?"

You snap your head back to look at him, grimacing in the process; that was _not_ a good idea. He peers at you through puffy red eyes, distorted from grief and sleep deprivation, much like yours must be. Swallowing a mouthful of dust you repeat, "This. It's not your fault."

At that, he nearly explodes. "Not my fault?! Not my — How can it _not_ be my fault? _Everything_ is my fault! _I_ was on the rebound, _I_ married her, _I_ missed all the signs! God, it's my fault every single time she blatantly exposed herself and I ignored it. It's _my_ fault we got separated; it's _my_ fault I went looking for her alone; it's _my_ fault you got shot! _I killed my Goddamn wife, Sydney!_ And you got _shot_; you spent _seven hours_ in surgery. You woke up every half hour after, screaming and delusional, because of that Goddamn fever. I had to watch them strap you to the bed _multiple times_; I had to watch...I had to watch you be in pain even when you slept. _It **is** my fault._"

You stare at him for a moment, shaken by the passion of his words. But as stubborn as he can be at his peak, you can go the distance and far surpass him. "Are you done?" You ask, a glimmer of the painless Sydney of before shining through. "Are you done with your selfish little pity party? 'Cause I've got something to say." Your bluntness catches him off-guard, and a tear perched precariously on the edge of his lower lid teeters and falls, cascading down his cheek in a well-worn rut. "Yes, you did marry her, and, yes, you did hurt me, but the world does _not_ revolve around you, Michael Vaughn; other people have a say in what goes on around here. _She_ did all those things; it was_ Lauren's_ fault. It was her _job_ to marry you, to fool you into believing her every word. I did that for two years. Did you forget that? You even helped me! So don't you dare think you're the only one to be duped." You know that's what he was thinking; he ducked his head.

You pause for a moment, letting your words sink in. Sometimes it takes the longest for the simplest phrases to make sense.

As soon as he glances up again you continue. "You can hate her. No one's asking you not to. But you can't hate yourself for what happened. She took advantage of a grieving man. You were just being you. I can't fault you for that. I hate her for twisting you and making you think you were guilty—"

"But what about—"

"That wasn't you," You interrupt, gaining back some of your own vivacity. You know of what he speaks, but your feelings on his shameless breech of protocol are less concrete, seeing as you were unconscious for most of the interim and could not contemplate your position. But you figure if you just start talking, maybe you could work it out. (Even though there's a good chance you'll go off-script and out-of-character and ramble like a lunatic, but that's a chance you'll take.) "Yes, you did go off on your own," You begin slowly, letting your heart choose your words, "and, yes, you did endanger both our lives—"

You stop suddenly and marvel at his face. Never before have you seen such sorrow and remorse and _self-loathing_. And the words just come. "I _am_ pissed about that, no doubt. I could have died, _You_ could have died. What you did was stupid and selfish and dangerous and vengeful. You did what _Lauren_ would have done. But you know all that, and that knowledge is what sets you apart. What you have is _remorse_, and that's something she could never have. And that also gives me hope that you'll never do it again." You glare at him pointedly.

His eyes widen as he shakes his head vigorously. "Oh God, no, Syd. When-when I though I lost you _again_..." He trails off, pinching his nose and smoothing the tears before they can fall. You nod knowingly, barely inclining your head for fear of the world spinning out of control again.

Shifting slightly — catching his attention in the process — you reach for him, gesturing toward your stomach. Gingerly and with your guidance, he lowers his head onto your abdomen, and you compartmentalize the pain as you lift your left hand onto his cheek, memorizing the new wrinkles and remembering the old. "What happens now?" You murmur, more to yourself than him.

"Well coffee is out of the question for the time being," He replies, resurrecting some of your old playful banter.

Peering at him defiantly you answer, "Says who? Borrow a trench coat off Weiss and see how far it gets you. Several small pizzas can fit into those pockets."

"Syd, it's almost summer."

"Cargo pants. Those are still in style, aren't they? They're the new Capris, right?"

"Syd..." He sighs, peering up at you with round eyes.

You return his sigh and roll your eyes lightly, rebuking yourself when your brain rattles about. "Alright. Dehydrated hospital food it is. But could you grab some ice chips? I feel like I swallowed a dead cat."

He carefully rearranges the pillows beneath your head so that you are sitting almost upright with your arm in a sling — it had been dangling unnoticed from a machine — before he jogs out. Returning quickly, he circles back around to your bad side and reclaims his seat. He fishes out a chip, scoots to edge of his chair, and places it on your lips, painting them with the rapidly melting substance. The strange sensations of dueling hot and cold battle for dominance throughout your body, making you forget momentarily about the pain. The delivery of the next chip is even more pleasurable. It flows from one tongue to the other as your two sets of lips lock, remembering tangos of this nature from years past. You are so involved with the kiss that you don't hear the door open.

"Weiss is back with the goods, Mike. Oh hey, Syd's up! Welcome back, girlfriend! I got you some coffee just in case this happened. Well, it's decaf since you're not allowed to have caffeine, and it's lukewarm 'cause you can't have anything hot, and it doesn't have any cream or sugar 'cause you're not supposed to have any of those, either, so I suppose it's just kinda like the water on the days they flush the sewers...Hey, guys? Yo! Refreshments, anyone? Hello? Drinks...present...Aw man. Here we go again."  
  
**_END

* * *

_**One more and the series is done. Hope you enjoyed!

:D Becky, the Dream Writer 4 Life


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